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Singing Loudly and Carrying a Big Flag

No one can argue that country music is monolithic, especially not this week. On Valentine's Day, Willie Nelson released his recording of Ned Sublette's gay-cowboy song, "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly (Fond of Each Other)." (The song is available on iTunes.)

Then again, Mr. Nelson has long been country music's most beloved misfit. If you're looking for a more familiar example of the genre's politics, you couldn't do much better than "Politically Uncorrect," the new video from Gretchen Wilson. She has built a successful and hugely entertaining career on two albums full of songs about her "redneck" pride, and this video lays it on thick. "I guess my opinion is all out of style," she sings. And she turns her conservative values into a typically rousing sing-along: "And I'm for the Bible/ And I'm for the flag/ And I'm for the working man." To prove it, she sings the song with Merle Haggard, who was long ago enshrined as a human embodiment of good-ol'-boyism.

As it happens, Mr. Haggard has a new video of his own, for "Rebuild America First." If anything, it looks even more patriotic than Ms. Wilson's, with flags filling the screen every few seconds. He, too, strikes a pious and patriotic note: "God bless the Army and God bless our liberty." But whenever you see that many flags in one place it's best to be suspicious, and Mr. Haggard's video is proof of that. His prayer is followed by a mildly profane rejoinder: "And dadgum the rest of it all." The moral of the story comes near the end, when he sings, "Let's get out of Iraq/ And get back on the track." No wonder he needed so many flags.

Ever since the 1960's, Mr. Haggard has been not just one of country music's sharpest songwriters and most elegant singers, but also one of its shrewdest -- which is to say, slipperiest -- politicians. He may still be known for his 1969 hippie-baiting song, "Okie From Muskogee," but since then he has made it harder to interpret those seemingly straightforward lyrics.

At different times he has implied that the song was a social satire, a character study, a howl of anti-antiestablishment outrage or some combination of the three. Even "Fightin' Side of Me," his like-minded follow-up hit, leaves a surprising amount of wiggle room. "If you don't love it, leave it," he snarled. Those words might sound like a rebuke to dissenters, but they also anticipate the tactics of today's antiwar protesters, including Mr. Haggard himself: speak loudly and carry a big flag.

While Mr. Haggard has always been tough to pin down, his current album, "Chicago Wind" (Capitol Nashville), is one of his most explicit so far. In addition to "Rebuild America First," it includes "Where's All the Freedom," a call to arms that crosses party lines: "Can't show the Ten Commandments anymore/ Where's all the freedom that we're fightin' for?"

Of course, Mr. Haggard is scarcely a mainstream country artist these days. And everyone knows that today's biggest country stars aren't quite so slippery: they're enthusiastic supporters of the war in Iraq. Or are they?

Listen closely, and you may realize that Mr. Haggard's slipperiness is less the exception than the rule. It's true that ever since 9/11, country stars have been vocal about supporting the troops. But that's scarcely a controversial position: even Al Franken does U.S.O. tours. One of the best and most popular post-9/11 country hits was Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," an eloquent expression of sadness.

Even Toby Keith, widely known as country music's biggest hawk, has sung mainly about the relatively uncontroversial war in Afghanistan, not the more divisive one in Iraq. His fist-pumping revenge song, "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," took aim at the Taliban and Al Qaeda (without mentioning either by name). And in "The Taliban Song," he sang a good-natured ode to a "camel-herdin' " Afghan man -- a Middle Eastern redneck, perhaps -- who was happy to see his old government gone.

This is the tradition Ms. Wilson has followed. She uses politically charged words and images -- "redneck," "rebel," the Confederate flag -- while just about draining them of any specific political meaning. She brashly announces that she's "politically uncorrect," but the things she sings about seem guaranteed not to cause offense: not just the flag and the Bible and the troops, but also preachers and farmers and the working man. No doubt she also enjoys puppy dogs and long walks on the beach.

Ms. Wilson even includes on her list "the single mom raising her kids." That's a neat reversal: in the early 1990's, during the short-lived controversy over "Murphy Brown," it was the politically correct types who were defending single motherhood. But then, that's the seductive thing about Ms. Wilson's world: you don't have to be incorrect to be "uncorrect." Everyone's a rebel.

Which brings us back to Mr. Haggard. The man who once rebelled against rebellion can now be spotted in Ms. Wilson's video ("Old Hag," she calls him), singing a strident nonprotest song in support of the status quo. And while that video strains to be provocative, his own video strains not to be. The title, "Rebuild America First," echoes Reagan-era notions of national pride. Perhaps unintentionally, it also evokes the America First Committee, the group that agitated to keep the United States out of World War II. Mr. Haggard must be hoping his listeners aren't old enough to remember Charles Lindbergh.

It can't be a coincidence that these two videos also reflect the strange, mixed-up political debate that has been inspired by the war in Iraq. Like incumbent politicians everywhere, Ms. Wilson presents herself as a perpetual outsider, even though her lyrics are small-C conservative: her main point is that things are pretty good. And like many opponents of the war, Mr. Haggard works overtime to make sure no one can question his patriotism. "There's things to be done all over the world/ But let's rebuild America first," he sings, articulating an anti-idealistic message that has united left-wing peaceniks with right-wing isolationists.

In this frantic rush of co-opting, everyone is cross-dressing: the ode to hard-working Americans is disguised as a protest song, while the protest song is disguised as an ode to hard-working Americans. Is it any surprise which one is better? Mr. Haggard's faux jingoism sounds constrained, even flat-footed; it could almost be a stump speech. But with Ms. Wilson, he sounds as if he's having a lot more fun. Not for the first time, faux rebellion carries the day.